Monster Sunspot – Solar Flare: Oops, There Goes The 21st Century

>UPDATE (10/24, 21:30 GMT) A Strong X3+ Solar Flare Is Currently In Progress and it will be geoeffective because the sunspot is directly facing Earth.

>UPDATE (10/25, 11:30 GMT) A pulse of extreme UV radiation from the flare ionized the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere, causing a brief but strong blackout of HF radio communications over the sun-facing side of Earth. Data suggests that the explosion did not hurl a significant CME toward our planet (dodged another bullet).

LOTS OF SOLAR FLARES: Solar activity is high.

GIANT sunspot AR2192 has produced dozens of C-class solar flares, many M-class flares, and several X-flares.

The most powerful solar flare eruption from this sunspot occurred on 10/24, an X-3 class. Previously an X-1.6 blast on Oct 22nd knocked out some radio communication on Earth.

It may be the biggest sunspot group in 25 years.

The sunspot is so big, that it can easily be viewed from earth during sunset and people are beginning to notice it when the sun is dimmed by clouds or haze.

“It would seem to be just a matter of time before another strong explosion occurs,” said spaceweather.com’s Tony Phillips

Remarkably, not one of the explosions so far has hurled a significant CME toward Earth. The primary effect of the flares has been to ionize Earth’s upper atmosphere, causing a series of radio communications blackouts.

Earth-effects could increase in the days ahead. (Sunspot) AR2192 has an unstable magnetic field that harbors energy for powerful explosions, and the active region is turning toward Earth.

(UPDATE 10/24) The sunspot is directly facing at this time and rotating beyond – as it has just unleashed a powerful X3+ solar flare (CME strength to be determined)

NOAA forecasters estimate a 95% chance of M-class flares and a 55% chance of X-flares during the next 24 hours.

The thing is –
If there’s an X30+ solar flare, we might be saying, “Oops, there goes the 21st century”.

Will an X30 solar flare ever be predicted? Answer: No. We will never know when it’s going to happen. What we do know however is that it will happen. And the potential is always there whenever an active (and large) sunspot group is rotating around the sun. If it happens to fire off while facing the earth, then we could be in for a major setback – to say the least.

What do I mean by “Oops, there goes the 21st century”?

For those of you who have studied the Carrington Event solar flare of 1859 will know what I mean (look it up if you haven’t already). Basically, a large enough solar flare and CME (potentially lasting for days) could induce electrical currents in power grid power lines of sufficient magnitude over a sufficient length of time to not only trip all the breakers – but to melt down the windings of power transformers – some of which are particularly crucial to keeping the power up for most of us (EHV Extra High Voltage transformers).

The thing is – EHV transformers are not built in the United States and they could take up to a year to build (in a place where the power is up). If the power is down, there will be that much more difficulty building them. In the mean time, it will only take several weeks for the nation (or large chunks thereof) to descend into complete and total chaos without electricity. Oops, there goes the 21st century…

How long could you survive without electricity?

Whenever I witness the sun unleashing large solar flares and/or a very large sunspot group, it makes me a bit uneasy. There are forces completely out of our control, some of which would entirely end life as we know it. Let’s hope that sunspot group AR2192 isn’t the one…

UPDATE (for your information)

Scientists classify solar flares according to their x-ray ‘brightness’. There are 3 categories:

X-class flares are BIG; major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms – or potentially a 21st Century ending event.

28 Comments

While outside yesterday right before lunch, the fog was lifting out but it was quite hazy with thin, low haze. I looked up and actually saw this thing, and it was awesome. Later in the afternoon, I went out with welding glasses from the shop. I’ve never seen one until now, and I will b e 52 years old, so I consider this to be a one time deal.

As of ‘now’ 12192 is in optimal position to deliver a geo-effective CME towards the Earth. Following the last significant flare which Ken mentions above that spot group has been relatively quiet..it will not remain so as the interior of the trailing (southward region) is now evincing an increase in both complexity and magnitude as well. A brief stop over the 3 day NOAA X-ray monitor (real time) will show an inflection in the trend to the increaing at this time.

Jan Alvestad over at the STAR report (a much better source – IMHO – for several solar related variables than are NOAA’s posted figures) is curently listing the size of 12192 as being in excess of 3200 solar millionths; the largest seen since the 1980’s…bigger even than 0486, from which the ‘Monster Flare’ of 2003 was emitted. THIS one might be serious Folks..be ready, no second chances if it decides to do so.

Bear in mind that the velocity of any ejecta hurled from the Heliosphere is a function of the ‘violence’ of the initial impulse, Yes? Ergo, greater initial flare…then faster travel. The Quebec event a few decades ago reached Earth in only 14 hours, as contrasted with the Carrignton Event which took 18. So, ‘no’…if it took a long while, then it’s forward velocity would be low enough (by implication) that it would have minimal effect upon us, here (density, temperature notwithstanding). Also, understand that the effects of any CME are acutely (critically) related to it’s velocity as the subsequent ‘strike’ involves the inductive character of magnetism….acutely dependent on the rate of change, not quantity generally.

All the power goes out for hours & there’s no word anywhere of what’s going on. At what point do you pull out your radio from the faraday cage to find out what happened if this can go on for days? If you wait too long the batteries of people who have working radios, etc will run out & you won’t get any info anyway.

A monster flare will affect orbiting satellites.
GPS will fail. Computer clocking will fail.
Aircraft completely relying on GPS for navigation will be in serious trouble. Airbus industries Aircraft are computer flown with pilot assistance. Boeing Aircraft are pilot flown with computer assistance.
Some aircraft will fall out of the sky.
All computers and communications rely on the Smithsonian for a central clocking signal. Digital signalling requires this centralised clocking for coordination. If the Smithsonian signal is lost the internet, cellular and much of the landline comms will fail. Optic fibre relies on this same centralised synchronizing signal.

For a complete report on the consequences of a monster CME/Solar Flare google US Navy Vice Admiral James A Marusek and check the report he wrote for the government.

There has been a lot of discussion/debate on grounding, but Faraday himself believed that there was no known “insulator” against magnetic fields, and the basis for his ‘Faraday Cage’ was a grounded electrical conductor between the device you are trying to protect and the electromagnetic field. The more solid the cage (say, sheet metal vs a screen), the more effective the cage, and the better it’s ground the more effective the cage. And that opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it.

It’s best practice to ground a cage as any electromagnetic field a cage encounters transfers an electric charge. The chage if sufficiently insulated will act as a capacitor and hold that charge until it bleeds off or something touches it. Depending on circumstances the shock could be nasty or fatal.

I believe a properly designed cage will inhibit both electric as well as magnetic fields. A expanding and collapsing magnetic field will induce current in the conductors the field pass through.

Although an X3 is very impressive, fortunately an X3 will not do Carrington style damage. However, we as yet do not know the extent of the associated CME (or speed) – which is the ball of plasma energy which would theoretically cause the damage. Typically this could take less than 24 hours or perhaps a bit longer if it’s ‘slow’. Still browsing for more data…

Although no-one knows for sure, it is believed that the ‘Carrington’ event solar flare was in the range of an X30, while some say even an X50. The scary thing is – it is a certainty that this WILL happen again. It’s one of those things that just simply ‘happens’ every so often.

The problem is, our current tiny time-slice of modern human civilization could not survive without electricity. We have become completely dependent upon it. When a sufficient solar flare happens again – to bring down the power grid – it will be SHTF.

I’ve studied the sunspot group drawings of 1859 (the Carrington event) and this particular current sunspot group is apparently somewhat similar in size – meaning that there could be the potential (I suppose) that it ‘could’ happen. It’s like a major earthquake – no one can really predict it.

Nature has some VERY POWERFUL FORCES while we are just mere specks of life here on the earth (suffering from normalcy bias).

I read earlier that Twitter was having issues. I’m having an amusing, to me anyway, thought. If social media were to be offline for any length of time, would the youth of America be jumping off high rises? Think of the 1929 stock market crash. For extra points, would they be stacking Ipads and the like to make a jumping platform?

@he, you missed the point, which is this sunspot has potential (like many others) for a x30-x50. There’s no way to know one way or the other. You can’t predict it. As this flare developed, no one knew how big, until it ended. Kind of like an earthquake when you don’t know how big it’s going to get until it gets there.

biggest thing i worry about is the nuclear industry…
Ebola stopping peeps going to work
super Volcano
fallout ww3 stopping maintenance.
they aint going to stop building these
and Fukushima just needs a typhoon( missed it twice Very recently)…
or another quake.
Ebola is coming Government ineptitude Or part of the “plan”.
put the Lord first and scatter your preparations through Caches.
God Bless

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